Ex-football standout guilty in murder-for-hire plot

Leonard Roundtree III, right, leaves San Antonio's federal court with his lawyer, Curtis Lilly. Roundtree is on trial on charges that he agreed to help deliver a payment to a hitman his uncle, Alvin Roundtree, allegedly hired to kill his estranged common-law wife. Last June, Alvin Roundtree shot the woman seven times at Joint Base San Antonio -- Fort Sam Houston, but she survived.

Photo By Guillermo Contreras / San Antonio Express-News

Leonard Roundtree III (right) faces life in prison. Jurors agreed that he intended to deliver a payment to a hit man.

Alvin Roundtree came up with the plan while in jail, prosecutors argued.

Leonard Roundtree now faces up to life in prison when Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery sentences him Aug. 1.

The elder Roundtree is also awaiting sentencing. He pleaded guilty last month to shooting McFadden seven times on June 10 in a highly publicized attack outside her workplace at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. She survived, prompting the subsequent murder-for-hire attempt while he sat in jail, prosecutors said.

During the weeklong trial for Leonard Roundtree, federal prosecutors convinced jurors his uncle offered to pay a cellmate $10,000 to $15,000 to kill McFadden, a prosecutor and another Army officer. Prosecutors said Alvin Roundtree enlisted the help of Leonard Roundtree, who agreed to deliver the payment.

“This was a difficult investigation, but I am very pleased with the verdict reached,” Robert Almonte, U.S. marshal for the Western District of Texas, said Monday.

Almonte said the conviction was the result of hard work by his deputy marshals, the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office, with assistance from the Army's Criminal Investigation Command.

During the trial, deputy marshals testified how Alvin Roundtree's cellmate, rather than carry out the hit, turned to them and agreed to be an informant against the Roundtrees. Marshals also listened to nearly 400 calls Alvin Roundtree made from jail between June 11 and early July, several of which they said implicated Leonard Roundtree.

In one of the last calls between the Roundtrees, prosecutors Bettina Richardson and Joey Contreras contend, Alvin Roundtree tried to reassure Leonard Roundtree to keep it together.

“Just don't break,” Alvin Roundtree said in that call.

“I'm cool,” Leonard Roundtree replied.

But Leonard Roundtree's lawyers, Curtis Lilly and Debra White, said Alvin Roundtree manipulated his nephew and that investigators wrongly interpreted what was being said in the recordings. The lawyers said Leonard Roundtree, who starred at defensive back at Roosevelt more than a decade ago, was simply trying to help a relative.

“We are very disappointed with the verdict and are exploring all options,” Lilly said.

Leonard Roundtree testified last week that he believed Alvin Roundtree, who ran nightclubs in San Antonio and Austin, was asking him to deliver payment to book a performer.

“I didn't know anything” about the hit, he testified.

But the informant, a member of an East Side gang, testified that he left Leonard Roundtree a voicemail message that was clear about the plot: “I ain't going to knock off no three (expletive) for nothing!”